


risk assessment

by novoaa1



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: :(, BAMF Natasha Romanov, Blood and Violence, F/F, Hurt Natasha Romanov, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Natasha Romanov Feels, Natasha Romanov Has Issues, Natasha Romanov Is Not A Robot, Natasha Romanov-centric, Non-Graphic Rape/Non-Con, POV Natasha Romanov, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Protective Natasha Romanov, Red Room (Marvel), Sam Wilson Is a Good Bro, Self-Worth Issues, Stubborn Steve Rogers, also natasha's stubborn, and she likes wanda, and wanda likes her too, he's not great with subtlety, natasha doesn't have facebook, natasha romanov has self worth issues, natasha romanov is a hero, natasha sucks with feelings, showering together, sorta - Freeform, steve lands a quinjet at a ridiculously popular touring destination in hong kong
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-20
Updated: 2019-05-20
Packaged: 2020-03-08 11:24:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,308
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18893656
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/novoaa1/pseuds/novoaa1
Summary: Natasha takes off after the events of Civil War, having been dubbed an international fugitive by the government.Eventually, Steve finds her, and fortunately (or unfortunately?), he brought company: Bucky, Sam, Wanda.Or: Natasha sucks at feelings, but she's trying, okay?





	risk assessment

**Author's Note:**

> just a random idea that popped into my head... hope you like:)

— —

 

Leaning into the cold chains holding both wrists taut above in the gloomy space (abandoned warehouse, of course, because bad guys never seem to be all that keen on originality), Natasha gathers the coppery blood in her mouth, spitting it gingerly out onto the cement flooring beneath her. 

 

Next, she mentally catalogues her injuries: fractured wrist, two cracked ribs (at least), shallow stab wound over the left hip, dislocated shoulder, and a dull soreness between her thighs in addition to various cuts and bruises she’s long since lost track of—not terrible, but not ideal, either.

 

She would make do. 

 

(One of those assholes had had the brilliant idea to ‘sample the merchandise’ on the train ride over; she was meant to be drugged, so she allowed the idiot to have his fun while it lasted, all the while making a mental note to violently snap his neck in retaliation as soon as she had the intel she needed. 

 

She's no stranger to using sex for missions—consensual or otherwise. 

 

Coulson and Fury have never liked it, and Clint absolutely _hates_ it, but it cultivates results—that much is undeniable.

 

Steve wouldn’t like it either, she's sure; but what he doesn’t know can’t possibly hurt him. 

 

Wanda would no doubt have an opinion, too, if she knew… but Natasha tries not to think about that.

 

Because yes, she could have avoided that sort of unpleasantness, and yes, she’d known where their base of operations would be, so she supposes she could’ve just tried for a particularly bloody meet-and-greet at the warehouse rather than allowing herself to be captured and battered—but the fact remained that posing as a victim was the most surefire way to infiltrate their base of operations, extract the information she was after, then blow it all to high heaven before they even knew what was happening.

 

And as for her? Well.

 

She’s been through far worse—and what’s more, she’s known she was expendable since before she can reasonably recall.

 

Her body is not her own—it never has been.

 

But the rest of those victims? They're different.)

 

She can hear the bad guys in question muttering off in the corner less than 50 feet away, crouching around a laptop and discussing numbers and percentages emphatically in Mandarin—there’s only six of them (not counting the four currently out patrolling the perimeter), high-profile human traffickers (though they also dabble in pharmaceuticals, because they’re multi-faceted like that), each equipped with fully-automatic submachine guns; Natasha is positively itching to commandeer one and spatter the walls with their brains. 

 

(Or maybe not. Steve would be disappointed. Sam would be disappointed… _Wanda_ would be disappointed. 

 

Inwardly, she sighs; killing only if necessary, then.)

 

Turning subtly so as not to rattle her chains, she does another head count (better safe than sorry)—17 others; 10 women, 4 men, 3 teenaged girls. All chained, all trembling, all terrified. 

 

They’re the only reasons she hasn’t slipped out of her chains and taken her chances with the pack of trigger-happy human-trafficking lowlifes—she can’t afford fatalities. Not if she can help it.

 

So she holds still, and she watches—she knows they’ll soon grow frustrated with talking money and numbers and technicalities over by the computer, because there most certainly isn’t room enough for each of their individual egos in this admittedly rather spacious warehouse; soon, one will most likely leave the space under the guise of ‘assisting with patrol’ (though really he’ll just be fed up with the amount of unmitigated testosterone in the air—which, really; it's almost stifling), while the rest will come to have their fun taunting and poking at the powerless hostages, because that’s just the kind of people they are. 

 

(Honestly, Natasha doesn’t mind—especially since those men will unwittingly be giving her the precise window of opportunity she needs to neutralize them all and get the 17 innocent people out relatively unscathed. 

 

Really, it’s a win for everyone.)

 

They only last about 10 more minutes squabbling and bickering like overtly arrogant children—then one is taking his leave, murmuring something about patrol and a smoke break, while the other five are now turning to their chained captives, shoving each other idiotically and approaching with wicked grins on their faces.

 

(It’s almost disappointing how easy they were to read, Natasha thinks.)

 

20 minutes later finds Natasha standing with 9 unconscious bodies sprawled haphazardly on the bloodied floors of the warehouse, a semi-automatic in either hand, and the grunt from earlier squirming on the floor beneath her while she watches with cold and calculated disinterest.

 

(She’d had one of the few coherent hostages, a woman named Anna whose sharp brown eyes glinted with something like resilience, lead the rest of them outside to wait for the authorities, whom she’d called just five minutes earlier—as far as she's concerned, they don’t have to see this part.)

 

Predictably, he begs for his life. Vehemently. (Pathetically.)

 

A lone tear escapes from wide blue eyes, traveling down soot-streaked features, and she does not care. 

 

She pulls the trigger once, the barrel aimed steadfastly at his forehead—his desperate pleas stop abruptly as the bullet rips through his skull. 

 

It’s serene, she thinks, her callous gaze observing the neat bullet hole between his thick brows with almost clinical indifference; clean. 

 

Then there’s sirens in the air, and she’s well aware she needs to leave—but first she’s patting him down, checking every pocket until she finds what she’s looking for: his ID. 

 

He’s Jensen Sokolov, 33 years old. Russian. 

 

(She doesn’t bother to wonder what he’s doing in Changchun—honestly, she really doesn’t much care.)

 

She pockets the ID, knowing it’s another name in her ledger. Another bloodied kill. Another reason she doesn’t belong on a team with Steve, with Sam, with _Wanda_. 

 

The sirens are closer now, and she doesn’t bother wiping her prints off the Type 05 SMG she leaves behind (only one of them, because she doesn’t need two)—she’s already a known international fugitive; it’s not like it’s gonna make much of a goddamned difference.

 

And, without a backwards glance at the blood pooling around Jensen Sokolov, the newest black mark (or red, rather) in her ledger, she exits, swiftly and quietly—as if she was never there.

 

— —

 

Next order of business: her safe house in Hong Kong. 

 

She does some superficial first-aid after fleeing the warehouse—stitches for the stab wound, the bullet graze on her thigh from the brief firefight with the Chinese human-traffickers, and the through-and-through GSW in her right arm (again, another parting gift from that pack of ignominious morons)—but it’s more of a patch-up job than anything else.

 

So she’s not technically in danger of bleeding out quite yet, but she needs actual medical attention—of that much, she’s certain. 

 

She makes it there quickly enough, checking diligently for tails and any signs of foul play before she circles back to the apartment she’d bought just a 30-minute walk from the beautiful Victoria’s Peak, satisfied that she’s not being followed. 

 

The living space is just as she left it: three bottles of vodka in the freezer, a stash of Hong Kong Dollars in the wall (around 20,000 元; or about $2,500—the trick is to take the Hong Kong price, and divide by 7 for a rough estimate), a go-bag beneath the floorboards (and another in the closet), and various first-aid kits in numerous hiding places around the single-bedroom two-bathroom apartment. 

 

She’s sitting on the granite countertop, naked from the waist up, a bottle of vodka and a blood-smeared first-aid kit at her side, the gun easily in reach just behind her—a second later, her laptop screen lights up with a notification. 

 

She reads it, the crease in her brow deepening by the second as she does. 

 

_Shit_. She’d dropped messages to various contacts in the area, people who could (sort of) be relied on to give her word of anything unusual happening along the underground—it helped with any errant missions she might need to run (drugs, human traffickers, etc.) in order to clean up the streets while she was there, or quick information on any of her old enemies, should they decide to come looking for her in Hong Kong. 

 

This particular warning has Steve (and Sam and Bucky) written all over it—she’d have snorted out loud if it wasn’t the exact opposite of what she needs right now: a Quinjet landing at Tian Tan Buddha (because _'Subtlety? Who’s that?’_ She decides she's going to have a _talk_ with Steve Rogers about daring to be so foolishly blatant in a foreign country) some time in the last 10 hours.

 

She’s known for months that he’d been attempting to track her down, but he’s never come close, so she’s never made it a priority. 

 

Now, he's close—and she still has a good amount of stitching up to do on herself. 

 

She sighs softly, running through numbers and escape routes in her head as she takes another generous gulp of vodka—she hasn’t quite yet decided how she wants to play this.

 

She’s halfway done with the stitches for the profusely-bleeding bullet hole in her arm when she realizes she’s made up her mind: she’s going to talk to Steve, find out why in the _world_ he’s been so intent on finding her, then politely tell him to please screw off because she’s an international fugitive and he's not anymore and she has work to do.

 

(And with any luck, Wanda won’t be there.) 

 

She doesn’t expect he’ll find her without help, though, because the only other person who knows about this safe house is Clint, and last she checked her ex-partner and Steve weren’t exactly buddies—that in mind, she types up an encrypted message detailing her coordinates and sends it through the Quinjet channels she knows Steve will be using; after that, she knows it’s just a matter of time. 

 

Sighing, and still not completely stitched up, she digs out a black bra with lace trim from the go-bag hidden beneath the floorboards, clipping it on as she settles herself back atop the counter to begin disinfecting the stab wound on her stomach—poor Steve would probably go into cardiac arrest if he walked in on her half-naked, she knew, and as entertaining as that would be, she has a job to do.

 

Then, she waits. 

 

— — 

 

There’s only two more stitches to go on her stomach, though the throbbing ache in her sickeningly-bruised and fractured wrist has really begun to set in (not even to mention the burning in her cracked ribs)—still, she’s feeling a pleasant buzz when the camera she’d mounted years ago in the hallway picks up the usual suspects (all dressed in civilian clothes) marching up to her door: Steve, Sam, Bucky, and ( _Dammit_ ) Wanda. 

 

(Wanda looks _good_ , she can’t help but notice: tight blue jeans, white shirt, cute green army jacket, and she’s dyed her hair since the airport… it’s strawberry blonde, almost. Auburn, maybe. 

 

Ironic, Natasha thinks—just this last week she’d dyed her hair platinum blonde and cut it to about shoulder-length; it wouldn’t do much to help the whole ‘international fugitive’ situation, she knew, but it certainly couldn’t hurt to get rid of those trademark red curls, either.)

 

She watches on her laptop screen as Steve knocks, 'cause he’s polite like that—but she’d left the door unlocked, so she steels herself with another sip of vodka, then calls out “It’s open” as an invitation to the merry band of do-gooders crowding her hallway that really, _truly_ , never seem to quit. 

 

She’s just tying off the last of her stitches when the door is creaking hesitantly open—she chuckles to herself as she grabs the tiny pair of scissors with blood-stained hands to snip the wire, calling out, “Don’t be shy, boys” to her expected guests.

 

She hears hesitant footsteps—heavy ones, definitely Steve’s, coming first. “Cute,” he says dryly, though it comes off sounding rather flat. 

 

(She knows she can only attribute a fraction of it to the fact that she’s currently topless; the rest of it undoubtedly has everything to do with the fact that it’s been a good five months since they’ve last seen each other.

 

She's kept tabs on them, of course—made sure they weren’t getting into too much trouble, or biting off more than they could chew, as Steve so often tended to do… but beyond that, she’s been making it a point to stay well out of range. 

 

It's safer that way.)

 

Satisfied with her patch-up job for now, she looks up to take him in: grey Under Armour tee (the ridiculously tight one she can’t for the _life_ of her understand why he wears so much—it has to be uncomfortable.. right?), tan leather jacket, and slightly baggy blue jeans held up with a painfully normal brown leather belt.

 

(She’ll give him points for that, she guesses—clearly, he had taken at least _some_ of her lessons on a suitable undercover wardrobe to heart.)

 

Bucky and Sam file awkwardly in next (Sam in a green V-neck tee and jeans, Bucky in a black shirt, denim jacket and dark grey joggers), and she shoots both of them a smirk—Bucky, for his part, turns bright red and averts his gaze as he shuffles over to stand by Steve while Sam just grins back with a rueful shake of his head. 

 

“I’d hate to see the other guy.”

 

Natasha’s smirk widens. “You never will, Wilson.”

 

He lets out a low approving whistle, and she can’t help the tinge of affection seeping through her chest at that. 

 

And then, there’s Wanda—she’s walking slowly through the doorway (closing the door carefully behind her, because that’s just the ever-polite kind of person she is), a slight blush tinging her cheeks when she takes in Natasha’s current state of undress, her approach painfully hesitant as she moves to stand beside Sam in the small kitchen. 

 

“Hey, Wanda,” Natasha offers softly. 

 

The gentlest of smiles overtakes Wanda then, and her blush deepens (the tinge of affection within Natasha’s ribcage grows). “Hey, Natasha.” 

 

(Her accent has become more American, she realizes—almost indistinguishable from every other person living in the States.

 

She’s not sure what to make of that, but files it away for later anyhow.)

 

“So,” Natasha says, turning to address all four of them. “To what do I owe the pleasure of you all dropping by?”

 

Steve just clenches his jaw, looking decidedly more self-righteous than usual—and he’s silent for a long moment, like he’s not sure what to say. (Natasha thinks that that’s probably the case.) “You’ve been away,” is what he settles on eventually, the sternness in his tone starkly betrayed by the clear desperation in sea-blue eyes. 

 

“I have,” she replies simply. “I’m an international fugitive, if you haven’t heard.”

 

A smile quirks at Sam’s lips in response, but Steve’s solemn expression doesn’t change; Bucky, for his part, just looks thoughtful, like he’s reserving judgement (Natasha has grown to like the man he’s become, and the wordless solidarity the two of them share in every interaction), and Wanda just looks reasonably distraught. (A part of Natasha wishes she could fix that, even as she knows it’s irrational.)

 

“Why did you leave?” Wanda asks then, her voice hoarse and scratchy and _raw_ —if Natasha wasn’t… well, _Natasha_ , she’s sure that would’ve broken her.

 

Natasha shrugs. “Figured I’d take the worldwide manhunt elsewhere, let you guys rest.”

 

Steve sighs. “Natasha, we would have _helped_ you. We _want_ to help you.”

 

Sam nods earnestly in tandem with Steve’s words, and Natasha has to withhold a sigh. 

 

“I couldn’t take that risk.” 

 

Sam scoffs at that, though there’s no real malice in his eyes when he says: “And _this_ ,” he pauses to gesture vaguely (but quite emphatically) at her current predicament, “isn’t risky?”

 

“I can take care of myself.”

 

Steve opens his mouth like he wants to argue, but Wanda beats him to it. “But you don’t _have_ to,” she counters softly, stepping closer—Natasha can feel her heart rate jump at that, even as she quickly focuses on normalizing it again. (It doesn’t take her long—yet another of the many lessons she’d learned in her time at the Red Room.)

 

“What she said,” Sam adds, and Natasha allows her lips to quirk upwards into the ghost of a smile.

 

“This isn’t up for discussion,” she tells them firmly even as she _knows_ it’s not going to be that easy (if the stubbornly determined looks on their faces are anything to go by). “I have too many enemies—at this point, the US government and Interpol aren’t who I’m worried about.”

 

“Russia?” Bucky asks quietly, speaking for the first time since they’d all arrived.

 

Natasha nods, refusing to let a trace of the fear roiling in her gut show on her neutral expression. “Among others.”

 

“So?” Steve asks, and _God, he’s adorable. And naïve_ , she thinks. “I don’t care who’s after you. I want to _help_.”

 

Sam nods eagerly at that, and Bucky looks darlingly determined—Wanda’s not all that much better, with those puppy-dog eyes and an expression of rather ardent enthusiasm on her face.

 

“And that’s kind of you,” Natasha acknowledges, hopping off the counter to land silent and cat-like on the blood-dotted hardwood floor. “But entirely unnecessary,” she pauses, eyeing the four of them (and if her gaze lingers on Wanda for a half a second longer—well, that’s her business). “Now, I’m going to take a shower. You can hang around if you’d like, but I’d suggest getting out of here as soon as you can.”

 

With that, she turns to pad out of the kitchen and towards the shower—she’s just reached the doorway of the single bedroom when she hears the telltale sound of light untrained footsteps following her; with a sigh, she turns to face Wanda, who’s looking at her with wide cerulean-blue eyes, fidgeting adorably with her fingers in the dim lighting of the hallway. 

 

“Hi,” Wanda says shyly. 

 

Natasha smiles in spite of herself. “Hi.”

 

“Do you need—There’s a slash on your back, and I don’t know that you will be able to reach it..” Wanda trails off, biting her lip as her eyes earnestly search Natasha’s—even before she’d finished, Natasha knows what she's asking (or trying to _avoid_ asking, as it were).

 

(Is it smart? No. 

 

Well, maybe. 

 

It’s a fairly deep cut, and there’s a higher rate of infection if not cleaned properly… 

 

But at the same time, she doesn’t know if Wanda will get through it without kissing her, and she really doesn’t know if she can stop herself from kissing the girl right back if she does.

 

Well, she could, but she won’t—Natasha’s selfish like that, and she always has been.)

 

“I think you’re right,” Natasha replies even as she _knows_ it’s a mistake (but truthfully, she’s far too well-trained to not have seen the likelihood of this exact scenario playing out from the moment she saw Wanda outside her apartment on the screen; if she’s being honest with herself, she knew damn well she was going to let this happen)—then, she allows her lips to curve in a sultry smirk. “Shower with me?”

 

It has the desired effect: Wanda’s blush from earlier deepens tenfold, tinging her cheeks a delectable rosy pink, and suddenly Natasha can’t remember for the life of her why she thought this was a bad idea. (Well, she can, obviously, because at this point, she’s not even sure she’s _human_ after countless assassinations and meticulously-planned seductions and years spent at the Red Room—but it’s an expression, alright? Let her live.)

 

“I-I-I would like that,” Wanda stammers, and Natasha’s grin widens. 

 

This is going to be fun. 

 

— — 

 

Alright, so maybe ‘fun’ wasn’t the word she should have used. Whatever—she’ll admit that.

 

Wanda stares (though she tries to hide it) as Natasha undresses, and Natasha stares right back when Wanda does, too, delighting in the permanent flush tinting Wanda’s cheekbones. 

 

Then they’re stepping into the shower, and Natasha can feel the weight of Wanda’s stare, heavily laden with burning questions and palpable worry—even Natasha can tell that her injuries don’t exactly look great at the current moment. 

 

(There’s blood smeared along her inner thighs, which she’s hoping Wanda will just attribute to the bullet graze on her thigh, or any of the other countless injuries all over her body; what’s more, she thinks Wanda might be too bashful to let her gaze linger at the juncture of Natasha’s thighs long enough to notice… but, still, it's a gamble. 

 

Natasha doesn't like gambling.)

 

“What happened?” she asks eventually when Natasha is facing the wall of the shower, Wanda just behind her massaging delicately at the abused skin between her shoulder blades. 

 

Natasha decides to give her the short version: “Human traffickers. Surprisingly, they didn’t seem all that interested in friending me on Facebook.”

 

Wanda huffs out a laugh. “You don’t have a Facebook.”

 

“No,” Natasha hums. “But my covers do.”

 

There’s silence for a moment, nothing but the sound of water hitting the floor as Wanda reaches to squeeze a glob of eucalyptus-scented soap on her hands, then proceeds to rub it tenderly over the dimples at the base of Natasha’s spine. 

 

“That still doesn’t explain all… _this_ ,” Wanda says after a beat, clearly referring to the abundance of bloodied wounds and bruises littering Natasha’s body. 

 

“Doesn’t it?”

 

Wanda sighs, barely audible over the roar of the shower. “Natasha.”

 

Natasha turns to face her, inwardly smirking when Wanda’s eyes dart down to her chest and quickly back up again, flushing deeply as Natasha quirks a single brow in response. “I went in as a hostage.”

 

Well, _that_ certainly diverts her attention—and not in the good way.

 

“Why?” She sounds desperate, almost—it sends a twinge of discontent through Natasha’s chest.

 

She shrugs. “Easier to get things done.”

 

“But,” Wanda stops herself, looking distinctly troubled, “they—they _hurt_ you.”

 

“Nothing I can’t handle.”

 

Wanda casts her gaze downward, her features still distraught, and— _Aw, hell_.

 

Natasha sees the moment Wanda takes notice of the dried blood smudged at her inner thighs (dried blood took longer to come off under the hot stream of the shower, unfortunately), though she doesn’t move to hide it, doesn’t flinch as Wanda’s horrified eyes come up to meet hers, the question burning on the tip of her tongue. 

 

(A part of Natasha knows she’d accepted the possibility of the girl finding out long before she’d agreed to this. 

 

A part of Natasha thinks maybe she wanted Wanda to see—not to invite pity, but rather, to make her _understand_.

 

There’s a part of Natasha that thinks this might be enough to scare Wanda away for good, to let her know she’s been damaged beyond repair for as long as she can recall, that Wanda shouldn’t waste her time with her unless it’s for a quick fuck.

 

There’s a part of Natasha that knows it was planned—or, at least, that she’d long since accepted the outcome, either way.

 

Which is yet another reason why Wanda should run as far and as fast as she can away from Natasha, away from the utter _wreckage_ she’s become.)

 

“Natasha,” Wanda whispers, her voice trembling. “Did they…?”

 

She doesn’t say it—she doesn’t look as if she’ll be able to, either. Natasha decides to help: “Part of the mission,” she shrugs. “Comes with the territory sometimes."

 

Tears are welling in Wanda’s eyes now, and Natasha’s not quite sure what to do about that—to be perfectly honest, this was a reaction she hadn’t quite expected. (Rather, she’d expected Wanda to avert her gaze, to grow quiet, to avoid Natasha from the moment they were dressed and out of the shower—she didn’t expect Wanda to… well, to _care_.) 

 

“That—That’s not—" Wanda stumbles over her words, and a tear traces down her cheek—immediately, Natasha is catching it with her thumb, tilting her head curiously at the taller girl. 

 

“Don’t cry,” she urges gently, because really, she’s not sure what else she’s meant to do. 

 

Wanda just grips Natasha’s droplet-dotted wrist with a trembling hand, keeping it pressed warmly against the damp skin under her jawline. “I—I—I—"

 

Her breathing is growing erratic as she starts and stops herself, clearly overwhelmed—a second later Natasha is quieting her with a gentle “Shh” and instinctively pulling her into her arms; instantly, Wanda melts into Natasha, their height difference allowing for Natasha to burrow herself comfortably in crook of the girl’s neck as Wanda _breaks_ , letting out quiet broken sobs against Natasha’s temple, and they’re pressed together fully naked in the rising steam of the shower but it’s the farthest thing from sexual, because somehow it’s more _intimate_ than that, and _God_ , the Red Room most certainly did not prepare her for this. 

 

They didn’t prepare her for how it feels when someone cares, when someone cries for you, when you’re holding that someone and you’re starting to think you might just feel something for them, too, something that feels a hell of a lot like _caring_ even when you’re sure you wouldn’t know ‘caring' if it hit you in the goddamned _face_. 

 

To put it simply: They didn’t prepare her for Wanda Maximoff. 

 

— —

 

As it turns out, Natasha’s wrong about what she'd thought earlier—because it’s not Wanda who doesn’t make it through their intoxicatingly close proximity without leaning in for a kiss. 

 

No, it’s _Natasha_ who can’t help herself; it’s Natasha who, with the warmth of Wanda’s lips pressed carefully against hers, starts to think that maybe, just maybe, this might just be a risk that’s worth the effort. 

 

— —

**Author's Note:**

> would love any feedback! (my [tumblr](https://psyches.co.vu/))


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